Paolo Tiralongo wins nineteenth stage of 2011 Giro d’ltalia: Cycling News
Pro Astana Team’s Paolo took his first victory, after winning the nineteenth stage of 2011 Giro d’ltalia on Friday, May 27.
The race started in Bergamo and ended at Macugnaga. The 33-year-old, Trialonga took a total of 5 hours, 26 minutes and 27 seconds to cover the distance of 209 kilometres.
In the final kilometres, Contador was in good form and got caught up with Tiralonogo, but allowed his former team-mate Italian to cross the finish-line ahead of him. Vincenzo Nibali was in third with the difference of 3 seconds.
After winning the stage Tiralongo said, ''I have to thank Contador. We are great friends and I have a lot of respect for him. He saw that I was in good form and told me to go for it. He is a great rider and he is very important to cycling.”
In the beginning of the race, the group of 19 riders got away and managed to make a gap o 25 seconds over peloton, but after 28 kilometres all of them were caught again.
The group of three riders managed to breakaway, including Jérôme Pineau of Quick Step, Matteo Rabottini of Farnese Vini and Lars Ytting Bak of HTC-Highroad. All took advantage of eight minutes in the first climb.
Stefano Garzelli made a good effort in the race and launched attack on the Mottarone. The Italian Stefano, failed to get a lead and the other two riders, Johann Tschopp of the BMC team and Mikael Cherel of the Ag2r team, were behind him.
In the final kilometres, these six riders worked together, but after a few kilometres, Katusha made his move and several other riders went down, including Thomas Peterson, Carlos Sastre, Marco Pinotti, Craig Lewis, Carlos Ochoa, Luca Mazzanti, Tiago Machado
and Frederik Veuchelen.
In the lower slope of the climb, the six riders gained advantage of 40 seconds over peloton. However, all of them were caught by the other riders soon after. Paolo paced his speed and managed to cross the line first ahead of Alberto.
Three-time Tour de France Champion, Alberto Contador, extended his overall lead with a overall timing of 77 hours, 11 minutes and 24 seconds. Michele Scarponi was runner-up with 5 minutes and 18 seconds.
The next stage will start in Verbania and end in Sestriere. All the riders will cover a distance of 242 kilometres.
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